Search

During one of our most recent staff meetings, we were asked to go around to see a classroom from each grade level. The purpose was to get ideas for our own classroom. Another pre-k teacher and I walked around together. One thing that stood out in most of the rooms were the word walls. This gave us the idea to try and create a pre-k appropriate word wall. We both agreed pictures were a must.

At the beginning of the year my pre-k word wall will only have pictures of the students with their names under their corresponding letter. As the year progresses, we will add more pictures that they come up with. Today, when I was writing a student’s name on the board, I stopped after the first letter and asked “Who’s name do you think I am writing?” One of my students said her brother’s name. They also said the name of the student I was writing. Yet another student said zebra. I would like to be able to say something like, “those all start with Z, we should add them to the word wall.” I want them to come up with the words and have ownership of the wall. This might be something I use in my classroom this year as authentic literacy, but I know it will be more effective when it is started right at the beginning of the year.

Inspiration came to me today in the form of my sister, Lissa. While at the PEAK conference today, I attended Lissa’s presentation titled “Making the Web Work for You.” She helped me remember why I keep this blog. I want to reflect on my teaching and learning while also connecting with other teachers. If I’m never posting on my blog, how am I supposed to achieve this? One thing Lissa said to me after the presentation was “It takes a little extra time now, but the time it will save in the future is worth it.” So now I am taking that time.

My school has each teacher set a goal to help us grow as professionals. A colleague and I set the same goal for a couple of reasons. The first reason is that we both had interest in the same topic. The second reason is we wanted to help keep each other accountable. Our goal is to incorporate inquiry-based strategies for literacy through centers, daily plans, and weekly plans. We want our teaching of literacy to be more authentic and natural. We do not want letter of the week or other phonic programs because we do not feel it is authentic.

My current understanding of authentic inquiry-based literacy learning is that it is student driven. When students start asking questions about letters and sounds is when it should be introduced and talked about in the class. It should not be introduced in alphabetical order, but rather based on student interest and connections to other topics being discussed in the class. One strategy is by looking at the first letter of each of their names. My understanding is that students will start to notice letters and the sounds words make and naturally want to know and learn how to make these letters.

Our plan to learn more about this goal is to do personal professional development and observe other teachers that we know already have this in place in their classrooms. Lissa has also inspired me to reach out in the twitter world to find others that can help me reach my goal. Now that the inspiration has come, I will do my best to continue to reflect as I learn.

While I was in the maternity leave substitute position, there was a day that I had no white paper for the students to draw on. I had my wonderful TA Hiba go get some butcher paper for the class to draw on. We moved the tables and taped it to the floor. I set markers and crayons both out for them to draw with. It was a sight to see.

The students were so quiet at first as they settled into the place they chose around the paper.

The quiet did not last long as the students began attempting to write and draw many things. Some of which had to do with out PYP Unit if Inquiry “How the World Works.”

This picture shows one student writing letters. You can also see the picture that Hiba drew of a flower, per the request of many students.

It was amazing to see the growth they had all made that would have been missed if I had given them something specific to draw. This activity tops a coloring page any day!

My sister sent me a link to George Couros’ blog. I have not gotten a chance to look through his blog, but his twitter is amazing to follow. George shared a TED talk that I felt summed up one of the biggest reasons I became a teacher. The point… students don’t learn from people they don’t like. Click here to watch it.

We are currently doing a unit of inquiry called Sharing the Planet. We have been talking about the difference between living and nonliving things as well as what living things need to grow and live.

I wanted my students to be able to see a living thing, specifically a plant, grow, so we are taking care of lentils. I bought regular unsplit lentils at the store.

They had to first soak overnight in water so they would absorb as much water as needed. Each student was able to put a handful in our tub of water.

We linked this to literacy by talking about the letter B for bean. They glued the leftover lentils to a letter B.

The next day, once our beans were good and soaked, each student put a spoonful in their own cup so they could have their own beans to take care of and watch grow.

After only one night of being in the cups they have grown already! Can you see the little sprouts?

Having their own cup really worked well today when they each got to hold their cup and touch their beans and no fighting went on. Each student gave his or her own cup a small spoonful of water. It is amazing how careful they are around the beans while they are playing. They didn’t want to hurt them :)

Long time no post. I have been settling into my longterm sub postion and learning how IB works. With this overwhelming task of learning PYP in in such a short time posting has taken a backseat.

We have been having fun in Pre-K and using our creative minds. I recently came across a large cardboard box just sitting in our staff room. No one was using it so I snagged it for my classroom. I wrote in my lesson plans for my students draw pictures of what they wanted to create with the box. It just so happened that on that same day we went to the library and the librarian picked out the book Not A Box by Antoinette Portis to read to my students. It worked out fantastic! After the library we went back to the class and the students each drew their picture of what they wanted to create with the box. Being 3 years old sometimes we don’t understand what they have intended to draw, so my TA and I went around and recorded what each student had drawn. Here are a couple images of their drawings.

Big Shark

House

Tent

I decided to create a house for the library that could also act as a puppet show stage. This was inspired by something I found on SheKnows Parenting. I put it together and the students decorated it with paint and glitter. They had quite a bit of fun.

It got a little messy…

The next day I placed it in the library section of our room as a place for them to read. It was a popular area all day!

Who knows how long this little house will last, but I know they will enjoy their reading time while it is there!